Directory UMM :Data Elmu:jurnal:UVW:World Development:Vol28.Issue12.Dec2000:

World Development Vol. 28, No. 12, pp. 2051±2065, 2000
Ó 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
0305-750X/00/$ - see front matter

www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev

PII: S0305-750X(00)00078-4

Political Responsibility in Transnational NGO
Advocacy
LISA JORDAN *
Bank Information Center, Washington, DC, USA
and
PETER VAN TUIJL
Netherlands Organisation for International Development Cooperation (NOVIB),
The Hague, The Netherlands
Summary. Ð Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) manifest a new political reality in the global
realm. NGOs have come to mobilize, articulate and represent peopleÕs interests or concerns at
di€erent levels of decision-making: locally, nationally and internationally. The central argument of
this paper is that the relationships that emerge among transnational NGO networks are highly

problematic. The dynamics in these relationships determine the quality of NGO advocacy, both in
terms of its function as a channel to articulate di€erent development aspirations and as in terms of
e€ectively embracing their responsibilities to other actors in the network. This paper introduces a
concept of political responsibility to clarify representation and accountability in transnational
NGO networks. Based upon di€erent case studies of NGO advocacy campaigns, the paper also
introduces four typologies of relationships which may develop among networks, leading to a
varying degree of political responsibility. Ó 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Key words Ð globalization, NGOs, democratization, accountability

1. INTRODUCTION
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are
widely considered to be one of the most
dynamic phenomena in international relations
today. Most of the literature on NGOs is
exceedingly optimistic about the roles NGOs
play in the international, national and local
arenas. The academic literature has addressed
NGOs as the citizen sector (Najam, 1999),
NGOs as agents of accountability (Brown &
Fox, 1998), NGOs as the magic development

bullet (Edwards & Hulme, 1996) and the
expanding role of NGOs in global governance
(Williams & Young, 1994).
This paper contributes to the critical literature on what Keck and Sikkink (1998) refer to
as the ``most interesting'' dimension of transnational NGO advocacy networks, namely
the management of risks and tensions in international advocacy campaigns. Keck and
Sikkink (1998), Nelson (1997), and others have

discussed inherent tensions within these
networks. For example, Keck and Sikkink
(1998) note:
Because transnational advocacy networks normally
involve people and organizations in structurally unequal positions, networks can become sites for negotiating over which goals, strategies, and ethical
understandings are compatible (Keck & Sikkink,
1998, p. 121).

Nelson writes:
Although NGO networks have often united northern
and southern NGOs in opposition to a government
policy, North-South di€erences have extended in part,

to the NGO activists network (Nelson, 1997 p. 427).

Keck and Sikkink (1998) while touching upon
this topic do not elaborate on how tensions in

*

2051

Final revision accepted: 30 May 2000.

2052

WORLD DEVELOPMENT

transnational advocacy networks are resolved.
Nelson argues that some tensions are structural
features of the networks. In this paper, we
postulate that tensions arise when NGOs active
in campaigns fail to understand the political

responsibilities that arise in a campaign
process. When political responsibilities are not
embraced, NGOs are left open to criticism
about their legitimacy and accountability. After
presenting some key concepts (Section 1) we
introduce the concept of political responsibility
(Section 2). We then outline four typologies of
transnational advocacy campaigns (Section 3).
Based upon the typologies we conclude with
questions about existing literature on transnational advocacy, accountability and representation (Section 4).
The political responsibilities inherent to
transnational advocacy campaigns re¯ect a
healthy debate about the role of NGOs, their
legitimacy and accountability. The role of
NGOs continues to be contested between a
narrow service delivery role and an advocacy
role. The service delivery role is perpetuated by
the World Bank, some United Nations agencies
and national governments, while some NGOs
prefer to describe themselves in terms of

advocacy. Furthermore, the legitimacy and
accountability of NGO advocacy is increasingly questioned not only in the academic
literature (Edwards & Hulme, 1996) but also by
international ®nancial institutions such as the
International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank, generally in an attempt to divert attention from the pressure of NGOs on their
activities (Bain, 1999). If NGOs are to respond
successfully to these challenges, they will need
to deal with the political responsibilities inherent to promoting issues such as the rights of the
poor, poverty alleviation, natural resource
conservation, human rights and sustainable
development.
The de®nition of NGOs is not commonly
agreed upon. NGOs are certainly part of the
citizen sector and as such ``concerned with the
articulation and actualization of particular
social visions'' as noted by Najam (1999, p.
146). We adopt Anna VakilÕs de®nition of
NGOs as ``self-governing, private, not-forpro®t organizations that are geared toward
improving the quality of life of disadvantaged

people'' (Vakil, 1997, p. 2060). As we
predominantly discuss transnational advocacy
campaigns VakilÕs de®nition with its emphasis
on NGOs striving toward a normative change,
``improving the quality of life of disadvantaged

people'' is rooted in the experience of the
networks we will discuss.
NGOs have come to be a force in many
societies, or are at least so perceived. 1 As
NGOs have gained experience and credibility,
they have recognized that national and international policies as well as commercial market
forces often undermine sustainable development e€orts and limit the ability of people at
the grassroots level from participating in public
or private policy decisions that will a€ect them.
Informed by the needs and experiences of the
poorer or disadvantaged sectors in their or
other societies, NGOs have come to mobilize,
articulate and represent people's interests or
concerns at di€erent levels of decision-making:

locally, nationally and internationally. This
advocacy work is increasingly seen by NGOs as
an integral part of the role they play in civil
society. Using information as a key tool, it
entails the ambition to change the course of
human development by promoting equal power
relationships in national and international
arenas.
NGO advocacy is an act of organizing the
strategic use of information to democratize
unequal power relations. This de®nition di€ers
from others that tend to emphasize actions
related to in¯uencing policy, especially public
policy (Tandon, 1994; Edwards & Hulme,
1996). Others tend to outline advocacy relatively unspeci®ed, simply as ``communication
for change.'' In our view, these de®nitions are
too limited in expressing what advocacy stands
for, as they assume too much unity in objectives
and value systems among the NGOs involved.
Furthermore, they often emphasize impact on

formal political systems, while disregarding
other functions of advocacy. NGO advocacy
can very well be aimed at directly in¯uencing
reality rather than policy.
The act of advocacy to empower weaker
sectors of society is not limited to helping
people to access information or giving them
tools to reach out to decision-makers. The
underlying function of advocacy is often to
enhance the self-respect of weaker communities, to improve their self-con®dence, constitute
integrity and promote mutual trust: all essential
ingredients to develop a healthy community. It
is often overlooked that NGO advocacy also
entails a ®ght against cynicism and despair to
which powerless communities tend to fall
victim, in the face of massive political and
practical obstacles impairing them to improve
their lot.

POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY AND NGO ADVOCACY

Grounding NGO advocacy in democratizing
power relations rightly puts up-front the fact
that NGOs challenge the status quo. In general,
advocacy NGOs reveal truths that are not liked
by vested interests and power holders. Being
involved in NGO advocacy therefore entails
taking risks: politically, legally, mentally and
physically in the South as well as in the North.
Managing these risks invokes a political
responsibility toward other groups active in the
campaign.
Advocacy is often the key activity of transnational NGO networks, operating in global
campaigns. We de®ne transnational advocacy
networks as a set of relationships between NGOs
and other organizations that simultaneously
pursue activities in di€erent political arenas to
challenge the status quo. Political arenas are
spaces within which decisions are made. Most
are geographically bound, such as Washington

or Nairobi, but they can also be institutionally
bound such as the process of establishing a
biodiversity convention. The de®nition of
transnational advocacy networks does not lead
us into the sticky territory of assuming shared
values among NGOs engaged in advocacy.
Transnational advocacy networks are often led
by activists, a concept elegantly de®ned by
Keck and Sikkink (1998) as ``people who care
enough about some issue that they are prepared
to incur signi®cant costs and act to achieve
their goals'' (Keck & Sikkink, 1998, p. 14).
Transnational advocacy networks often form
around global campaigns. A transnational
NGO advocacy campaign (global NGO
campaign) as described herein is the pursuit of
loosely linked political objectives carried out by
transnational advocacy networks. Campaigns
are often named after the dominant concern or
after the targeted object. For example, the

Land Mine Campaign is commonly understood
to describe a global campaign against the use of
land mines. The Toxics Trade campaign is the
common reference for a decade old campaign
against the trade in toxic waste, etc.
2. INTRODUCING POLITICAL
RESPONSIBILITY
Global campaigns challenge development
projects, economic policies and political forces
that threaten to further marginalize local
communities or ruin pristine ecosystems. There
are political responsibilities that are inherent to
taking part in these advocacy campaigns.

2053

Political responsibility is a commitment to
embrace not only goals in a campaign but to
conduct the campaign with democratic principles foremost in the process. Political responsibility is a normative concept that di€ers
slightly from accountability in that accountability has formal obligations embedded within
its de®nition. Within transnational advocacy
networks there are no formal mechanisms to
enforce obligations. Thus, to discuss accountability within these networks would be to
suggest something that is not yet existent.
Many NGOs deny the concept of representation, pointing out that local communities, be
they in the North or South, are able to adequately represent themselves. This position
belies the fact that in global NGO campaigns,
NGO networks are often formed to allow for
the expertise and experience of multiple NGOs
to be heard in varying political arenas. While it
is true that local communities are often able to
present adequately their own interests, spokespersons are often tied to the local geographical
space within which they live and reluctant or
unable to leave the area under threat. They do
not have daily access to other political arenas.
Nor have they invested the time required to
understand the mechanics of investment banks,
the United Nations, etc. Thus there is a need
for networks to engage in multiple political
arenas. With the globalization of decisionmaking on the increase, we can only expect that
the need to articulate concerns in more than
one political arena will continue to grow. A
democracy de®cit is on the rise precisely
because of the dispersed nature of decisionmaking across national borders. NGOs, by
organizing advocacy campaigns in di€erent
political arenas at the same time, try to address
this democracy de®cit, either implicitly or
explicitly.
While cooperation in a global advocacy
campaign does not easily compare itself to
academic concepts of representation, it cannot
be denied that NGOs are in fact representing
interests when they operate with an expertise in
a speci®c political arena and use that knowledge to carry a campaign concern to a new level
of decision-making. The sheer fact of participation in a global campaign embodies a political responsibility toward others engaged in the
campaign but operating in a di€erent political
arena.
We introduce the notion of political responsibility to respond to the problem that ``representation'' does not provide a suciently viable

2054

WORLD DEVELOPMENT

conceptual or practical approach to come to
terms with power relations and responsibilities
as they emerge in the context of transnational
NGO advocacy campaigns. Transnational
NGO advocacy usually works in and around
systems of formal representation and established forms of international governance, but
does not replace them. A member of parliament
in a Northern country has no resources to
e€ectively conduct a certain level of control
over a bilateral aid program. A local community in the South equally has no means, no
knowledge and no established avenue to articulate its interest in Washington. An authoritarian government may actively repress the
voice of its citizens calling upon international
human rights standards, who subsequently
resort to their NGO friends abroad. These are
the gaps in which the democratizing contribution of transnational NGO advocacy networks
has to be framed. A network requires a di€erent
approach to simultaneously qualify the
responsibility for the actions of both the individual players in the network and the aggregate
results of the network as a whole.
An additional advantage of introducing
political responsibility is that ``accountability,''
as having a political connotation in conjunction
with ``representation,'' is extremely dicult to
translate e€ectively into any other language and
for that reason alone provides a major problem
in a conceptual framework about transnational
NGO advocacy. 2
Political responsibility in NGO advocacy
manifests itself in the following seven areas:
Ðdividing political arenas;
Ðagenda setting and strategy building;
Ðraising and allocating ®nancial resources;
Ðinformation ¯ow;
Ðinformation frequency and format;
Ðinformation translation into useful forms;
Ðthe formalization of relationships.
In each area there are parameters by which
political responsibility can be assessed. The sum
of all variables combined can help NGOs to
measure the extent to which they have successfully managed political risks and embraced their
political responsibilities. While in case materials
below, we have predominantly used examples of
environmental campaigns to further illustrate
our arguments, these areas of political responsibility arise in any development action that
utilizes more than one political arena. In any
action whereby an international and a locally
based organization are engaged, be it a food
delivery service in an emergency situation or

an agriculture extension service, these responsibilities arise, regardless of the nature of the
partnership between bene®ciaries and NGOs.
(a) Dividing political arenas
It is typical for a global NGO campaign to
grow from the need to engage more than one
political arena. In addition no one NGO
generally has the understanding of each arena
that needs to be engaged. For example, it
cannot be expected that a grassroots social
movement organization in the hinterland of
India will know all of the politically important
people in Washington, DC, will understand the
protocol associated with contacting relevant
decision makers, or will have the resources to
bring pressure to bear in that political arena.
The opposite is true as well. Organizations
based in Washington, New York or Geneva
may be intimately familiar with the way in
which those arenas work and how decisions are
made, but will not be able to understand the
pace, the mechanisms or the reality of a local
situation in Africa. Many readers may interpret
our division of arenas to be a North±South
division. That is not the case. Expertise in a
political arena is based upon a long-term
presence in that arena. Thus, FAVDO, which is
an African-based organization, maintains a
presence in Washington, DC and has expertise
in the Washington arena that we would argue
should be respected by partner organizations
when practicing advocacy. Recognizing who
has expertise and knowledge in which political
arena and respecting the boundaries established
by that expertise is the ®rst necessary act of
accountability in a joint NGO advocacy e€ort.
By recognizing the boundaries within which
each NGO prevails, NGOs networks go a long
way toward recognizing the political responsibility in advocacy.
(b) Agenda setting and strategy building
The second major issue that NGOs need to
engage is the question of agenda setting and
strategy building. Questions that require
engagement include: what are the substantive
priorities; for whose bene®t; using which time
frame and with what level of antagonism are
authorities or power holders approached in
which political arena? These questions point at
the fact that agenda setting and strategy
building are closely related to the management
of risks. Tactics and strategies decided upon

POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY AND NGO ADVOCACY

can have major consequences for all actors
involved. Agendas in advocacy will vary
depending upon the objectives of each NGO. It
is therefore essential to ®nd a format to lay out
explicitly what one's objectives are and to then
develop a strategy with transparent goals.
Among the issues that need to be recognized is
who bears the risks associated with campaign
positions. Not surprisingly, speci®c attention is
often needed for the NGO in the campaign who
has fewer resources or has to deal with a
repressive government.
(c) Allocation of available ®nancial resources
The need for ®nancial resources varies from
arena to arena. The availability of ®nancial
resources is a major factor contributing to the
risk of lopsided relationships among NGOs
around the globe, as the bulk of ®nancial
resources is in the hands of a relatively small
group of NGOs in the North. 3 Prioritizing
expenses is an issue that can cause tension
among organizations. Determining who has
money and can pay for activities, who has
access to other sources of ®nancing and who
cannot contribute ®nancially to the activities
agreed upon is one step toward recognizing the
relationships of power which money generates
among NGOs. A rough review of a number of
NGO networks and relationships with which
we have been involved has taught us that it
helps for more powerful, i.e. ®nancially
resourceful, organizations to separate clearly
the responsibility for raising and appropriating
money from advocacy. Financial accountability and political responsibility are di€erent and
should not be confused.
(d) Information ¯ow
In advocacy, information is the most powerful tool: the direction in which the information
¯ows in networks, whether all participants in an
advocacy campaign have equal access to the
same information, the density of the ¯ow of
information and the quality of available information will all have an impact on how and
whether political responsibility is embraced.
The ability to actually analyze, process or
generate information is equally important.
(e) Information frequency and format
The frequency with which NGOs relay
information to one another is not only impor-

2055

tant in the context of the management of
political responsibilities, but also in the e€ectiveness of the campaign. Signi®cant events can
erupt at any given moment and can either
positively or adversely a€ect any member of a
campaign. Getting information out can help
other partners in the campaign to be prepared
and/or protected. Equally important is determining an appropriate mix of communication
formats. The necessary trust to seriously
discuss agenda setting, strategies and riskmanagement cannot be developed by Email
alone (if it is available). Again, certain participants in the advocacy e€ort at hand may prefer
to speak rather than write, which requires using
the phone, while a certain frequency of meetings in person will also be inevitable, preferably
including meetings in the political arena(s)
where the most urgent problems occur.
(f) Articulating information into useful forms
Information by itself is not enough to pursue
e€ective advocacy. Often the available information needs interpretation in accordance with
the political arena in which it is being articulated. For example, World Bank documents
and Indian newspaper articles are equally
dicult to understand unless they are translated for the reader who is not familiar with the
institution or the political arena. Pointing out
the critical statements or aspects of the documentation to fellow activists in other political
arenas and translating the important pieces of
information (either from the local language
into English or vice versa), are critical responsibilities. In many situations, oral communication is the only method of communication that
is e€ective at a local level. A key indicator of
the quality of a campaign is the length to which
NGOs will go to break through communication
and language barriers.
(g) The formalization of relationships
In global campaigns, networks are often
¯uid. Global campaigns require time to determine who is going to be involved in the issue.
As campaigns develop, relationships tend to
become more formalized. They can even get to
the point where they have statutes such as in
the case of World Rainforest Movement
(WRM) or the International NGO Forum on
Indonesian Development (INFID). Action
committees, a memorandum of understanding,
the production of joint newsletters etc. repre-

2056

WORLD DEVELOPMENT

sent varying levels of formalization of mutual
relationships in NGO advocacy. Formalization
can help to establish transparency, which is
another key issue in advocacy. Transparency is
a very valuable tool in that it often highlights
the lack of transparency in counter forces.
Recognizing and clearly establishing the
parameters of networks involved in global
campaigns can help in de®ning political
responsibilities, certainly if the relationships in
question are expected to be productive over a
longer period. The more parameters that are
de®ned, the more explicit the level of responsibility toward partners in the network and the
better that risks can be managed. 4

3. TYPOLOGIES OF NGO
RELATIONSHIPS IN TRANSNATIONAL
ADVOCACY
The seven areas above are intended to help
recognize di€erent aspects of political responsibility in global NGO campaigns. Below, we
take one step further and suggest four overall
typologies of transnational NGO relationships.
The typologies are highlighted by campaign
case studies meant to illuminate the above areas
of political responsibility in practice (see Table
1). They are not meant to be the de®nitive
historical description of what happened in each
of these cases. Nor do we fully explore the

success or failures of these campaigns vis-a-vis
their ultimate goals or objectives. The sole
purpose of suggesting these typologies is to
further elaborate our argument and to propose
an additional tool to better understand politi-

cal responsibility in transnational NGO
advocacy.
In our typologies we match the commensurability of di€erent objectives of an advocacy
campaign in di€erent political arenas with a
quali®cation of what happens with information
and how strategies, risks and funds are managed. The level of political responsibility that is
attained in each typology is an outcome of
these indicators. An overview of the four
typologies is given at the end of this section.
(a) The cooperative campaign
We call our ®rst typology of relationships
among NGOs engaged in advocacy a ``cooperative campaign.'' In a cooperative campaign,
the level of political responsibility toward the
most vulnerable actors is optimal. For the most
part, advocacy agendas and strategies are set in
close consultation with the groups who are
supposed to bene®t from the campaign and
risks are assumed only in regard to the burden
that can be born by the most vulnerable. There
are four dynamics that frame the typology:
Ða pursuit of interlocking objectives by
di€erent NGOs in multiple political arenas
is intertwined;
Ða very ¯uid and continuous ¯ow of information among all NGOs involved;
Ða continuous review of strategies and joint
management of political responsibilities by
all NGOs involved. Risk management is
purely based on local realities in the political
arena where participants in the campaign are
most vulnerable;
Ða high level of political responsibility.

Table 1. Overview of campaign typologies
Title
Objectives

Cooperative
Interlocking

Concurrent
Compatible

Disassociated
Con¯icting

Competitive
Opposing

Information

High frequency, global
distribution, easily
accessible, freely shared

Regular, multiphased,
more tightly directed,
freely shared

Infrequent, lopsided,
dicult to access,
shared with reservation

Minimal, no direct
¯ow, inaccessible,
not shared

Strategy

Continuous review, joint Frequent review, coexismanagement, risks based ting management, risks
upon most vulnerable
based upon national
arena

Occasional review,
management and risks
exclusive to varying
arenas

No review,
single arena
management, no
recognition of risks

Low

None

Level of
political
responsibility
achieved

High

Medium

POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY AND NGO ADVOCACY

To highlight the parameters of political
responsibility in a cooperative campaign we
take the relatively well-known case of the
Sardar Sarovar dam in the Narmada-river in
India as an example (Alvarez & Billarey, 1988;
Fisher, 1995; Morse, 1992). 5 The Narmada
campaign had a high level of political responsibility among campaigners because the above
four factors were achieved. The objectives of
each set of actors in their own political arena
were clearly de®ned, understood and eventually
intertwined. There was a ¯uid and continuous
¯ow of information among all actors involved.
There was a continuous review of strategies and
joint management of political responsibilities
by all actors involved. Risk management was
based upon the strength of the most politically
exposed.
By way of providing the reader with a very
brief history, the Sardar Sarovar dam in India
provoked controversy from its inception in the
early 1980s. The project became controversial
because in its original formulation it would
have resulted in the ¯ooding of the traditional
lands of over 250,000 tribal people living on the
banks of the Narmada river in Gujarat,
Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. In total,
over one million people are expected to be
a€ected. The NGO campaign to stop the dam
became an international campaign when the
World Bank agreed to ®nance the construction
of the Sardar Sarovar dam.
On the local level, the objectives of the tribal
people were ®rst limited to obtaining proper
resettlement compensation. On the international level, the destruction of pristine wildlife
areas motivated the ®rst campaigners in
countries other than India to raise their voice.
The concern for the environment, however,
was quickly blurred by a concern for the rights
of the tribals. Once it became clear that the
authorities involved would not be able to
properly compensate ``oustees,'' the campaign
on the local level became an anti-dam
campaign. Gradually the anti-dam message
®ltered through to the international campaign.
The targets of the various actors in the
campaign di€ered from the outset. The tribals
targeted the national state of India and the
three states involved in the project. The tribals
employed national NGOs in India, based in
New Delhi, to help in¯uence both national level
ministries and as the campaign developed, the
national court system. International actors
targeted national bilateral aid programs and
the World Bank. Each actor in the campaign

2057

concentrated on their own political arena,
developing dialogues and tactics speci®c to
those arenas. But, there were many instances
where shows of mutual solidarity worked best
and thus there were many instances when
actors visited other political arenas than their
own. The purposes of these visits were either to
tell their own stories, as in the case of the tribals
coming to Washington, or to better understand
the realities and threats at the local level and to
provide protection to those who were politically exposed, as was the case when international actors went to the Narmada Valley.
While the varying political arenas were shared,
the strength of each set of actors in speci®c
arenas was recognized and respected. Overlap
was by invitation only.
In the Narmada campaign, advocacy agendas of di€erent NGOs were varied: to seek
proper compensation for the tribals; to get the
Bank out of the project; to stop other governments from supporting the project; to expose
the Bank's failure to be able to abide by its own
policies; to expose the State governments' failures to abide by their policies and to ultimately
stop the construction of the dam. Not all of
these agendas were shared on the tactical level.
But, all agendas were repeatedly discussed
among the various actors involved and agreed
upon. Di€erent tactics were developed in
the di€erent political arenas and regularly
shared.
A Narmada Action Committee (NAC) was
established on the international level to keep
communication ¯owing and to highlight new
events and decisions taken in the Narmada
Valley. The NAC ful®lled not only information needs but also established a level of
responsibility to the tribals from many centers
around the world. The tribals knew they
could call collect to Amsterdam or Washington and their requests would be heard all
over the world within a matter of hours. The
NAC also helped people share in decisionmaking. Generally, once a year, actors would
meet to compare notes; to rearm their
interest in the case; and to hear from someone who may have just arrived from the
Valley. In this way, the global relationships
among international campaigners active in the
Narmada case was somewhat formalized. The
lines of communication were relatively clear;
the frequency of communication was substantial; the responsibility of each actor to the
local arena and to one another was articulated and transparent.

2058

WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Similar mechanisms were employed between
the national level in India and the local arenas.
Information generated on the international
level was translated into tribal languages while
the Narmada Bachao Andolan produced
updates of local facts and events for the international NGO community on a regular basis.
These were often handwritten bulletins faxed to
Washington and then distributed globally.
When particular activists might be tempted
to go too far with a strategy, the threat of being
cut o€ from the primary sources of information
and the threat of being ostracized by the
movement in the Narmada Valley were used.
Furthermore, decisions made in the most
politically vulnerable arena were respected by
all players. When the actors in the local arena
chose not to participate in an academic study
about the movement, all international
actors abided by that decision and did not
cooperate.
The Narmada case was special in that money
did not ¯ow between various arenas. Money
from the international arena was considered to
be more harmful than helpful for the tribals,
although, resources were shared. For example,
faxes were paid for by the international organizations, telephone calls were made with
charges being paid by wealthier NGOs, etc.
Money hardly ever crossed from one political
arena into another. This dissipated any
unhealthy power relationships that might have
developed in the campaign.
(b) The concurrent campaign
Our second typology of relationships among
NGOs that are engaged in advocacy is the
``concurrent campaign.'' The concurrent
campaign has coinciding representation of
di€erent but compatible objectives. It does not
achieve a high level of political responsibility
given that the objectives in various political
arenas are di€erent. Thus, information loops
are not as tight as they would be in a cooperative campaign where everything is intertwined
and direction is taken from the most politically
exposed. The dynamics of a concurrent
campaign can be quali®ed as follows:
Ða coinciding representation of di€erent but
compatible objectives by NGOs operating in
their own political arena;
Ða regular but multiphased ¯ow of information among NGOs involved;
Ða frequent review of strategies and coexisting management of political responsibilities

by varying combinations of NGOs involved
at di€erent levels;
Ða medium level of political responsibility.
We present the Arun Dam campaign as an
example of a concurrent campaign. 6 The Arun
III was a Japanese-conceived run-of-the-river
hydroelectric dam project scheduled to be built
in a remote area of Nepal, the Arun valley
(Bank Check Quarterly, 1992±95; Brown &
Fox, 1998; World Rivers Review). The valley,
while relatively sparsely populated, contained
an eco-system rich in biodiversity. The dam was
meant to supply energy to two major city
centers in Nepal and the rest to India. The total
cost of the project (over a decade) was estimated at US$764 million, about the size of
Nepal's annual national budget.
In the Arun case the objectives of NGOs in
di€erent political arenas varied. On the
national level in Nepal, the Arun case was an
anti-dam campaign from the outset. The issues
advocated upon were purely environmental and
economic. At the international level, the case
was also anti-dam, predominantly because of
its environmental impact. The case in part,
however, became an international one because
it arose at a time that coincided with the creation of the World Bank's Inspection Panel. The
planned participation of the World Bank in the
®nancing of the Arum Dam thus provided an
opportunity to test the new inspection mechanism. These objectives were well understood by
all actors and were not in con¯ict with one
another. In fact, it was the national-level actors
who chose to use the Inspection Mechanism as
an additional advocacy tool. Nevertheless, the
possibility of using the mechanism generated
interest in the case at international levels to a
greater extent than before. Overlap in the
objectives occurred in the writing of the
inspection claim, where the economic arguments favored by the local people were
predominant, next to alleging violations of
environmental assessment, resettlement and
other World Bank policies. After the Inspection
Panel had completed a review of the project,
newly appointed World Bank President
Wolfensohn announced in August 1995 that
the Bank would no longer support Arun III,
thereby e€ectively killing the project.
The ¯ow of information in the Arun case was
speci®c as opposed to all-encompassing in the
Narmada case. Information ¯owed between
various actors but not across, so that the
Nepalese were responsible for communicating
with each and every contact made at the

POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY AND NGO ADVOCACY

international level (as opposed to contacts
¯owing between and among international
players). Relationships between campaigners
internationally were less formal than in the
Narmada case. On the national level in Nepal,
however, relationships were formalized by
establishing two NGO coalitions, the Alliance
for Energy and the Arun Concerned Group.
The connections to the local arena were weak in
the Arun case so theories about the needs and
desires of the local people were not very well
tested. This was the greatest weakness of the
campaign. There was a low level of maintaining
political responsibility with respect to the local
region. As a result, when the World Bank's
decision to withdraw from the project was
announced, the Nepalese NGOs initially were
afraid to openly show their satisfaction as they
feared a backlash from some local interest
groups that had anticipated bene®ts from the
project. At the same time, international NGOs
released a press statement declaring victory on
the assumption that Nepalese people were
dancing in the streets.
(c) The disassociated campaign
We call the third typology to qualify the
relationships among NGOs engaged in transnational advocacy the ``disassociated campaign.'' This type of campaign takes us one
step further away from truly interwoven
relationships among NGOs, to a situation
whereÐbased upon the same issueÐadvocacy
objectives represented by various NGOs in
di€erent political arenas begin to clash. The
dynamics of the typology are:
Ða parallel representation of con¯icting
objectives by di€erent NGOs in their own
political arena;
Ða regular but lopsided ¯ow of information
among the NGOs involved, usually more
information ¯ows from the South to the
North rather than vice versa;
Ðoccasional and unaliated review of strategies and management of political responsibilities among di€erent NGOs involved,
predominantly exclusive to their own political arena;
Ða low level of political responsibility.
The example we use to illustrate the typology
of a disassociated campaign is the intended
investment of the US Scott Paper company in a
pulp and paper plantation in Irian Jaya, East
Indonesia (Cleary, 1997; Stern, 1991). Like the
previous cases, environmental concerns and

2059

issues of peoples' participation were at the
forefront of the NGO agenda(s). Next to
national and provincial authorities, however,
the main target of the campaign was a private
company rather than the World Bank.
In October 1988, the US-based Scott Paper
company announced a US$653.8 million
investment in a tree farm and pulp mill project
in the Southeast part of Irian Jaya. The project
was to be realized by means of a joint venture
between Scott Paper and PT Astra, a large
Indonesian conglomerate, well connected to the
Indonesian Suharto regime. The aim of the
project was to gradually establish a eucalyptus
plantation of up to 200,000 hectares to provide
logs for a pulp and wood factory in nearby
Merauke.
Soon after the public announcement of the
project, local and national NGOs began to put
forward criticisms and demands. The Indonesian Network for Forest Conservation (Skephi)
led a coalition with nine other Indonesian
Jakarta-based NGOs, who began to raise
concerns. Skephi questioned how a forest
concession could have been granted to PT
Astra Scott Cellulosa without the implementation of an Environmental Impact Assessment in
conformity with Indonesian Environmental
Law. Other issues raised by Indonesian NGOs
were: how Scott and Astra planned to involve
local communities in the project, especially with
respect to the use of tribal land; the impact on
customary land ownership; the selection of
pristine tropical rain forest (which would lead
to the destruction of genetic resources, while
the resulting deforestation could lead to the
drying up of natural rivers); the composition of
the necessary labor force and how it would be
recruited; and whether upstream and downstream wastes would be handled appropriately.
NGOs in the United States adopted these
demands.
In response to initial NGO criticism, Scott
promised an environmental as well as a social
impact assessment, and explained that there
would be an extended test-period for the
project to review its environmental and social
soundness. The company stated that the
intention was to carefully approach the project.
The relationship with the local communities
was described as a ``win±win'' situation with
promises being made as to the creation of 6,000
jobs, training for local people, as well as the
provision of schools and medical facilities.
Subsequently, communication between Scott
and NGOs developed on various levels,

2060

WORLD DEVELOPMENT

primarily in Irian Jaya and in the United States.
A group of ®ve local NGOs got together and
established fairly regular communication with
representatives of PT Astra Scott Cellulosa.
The local NGOs obtained a copy of the project
plans, which they translated into Indonesian
and circulated among local communities.
NGOs were assigned to help explain and
discuss the documents and the project in
general with the local communities, in a series
of meetings that were organized by the NGOs.
The local district authorities also got involved
in these meetings.
In the course of 1989, an agenda for local
NGOs emerged, in which they basically accepted the establishment of the plantation, trying
to gain training and employment opportunities,
fair compensation for tribal land and proper
control over environmental, social and cultural
impacts. The discussions with Scott went as far
as the establishment of an agreement to keep
prostitution and bars away from the project
area. With respect to the important question of
land ownership, Scott started making a map of
the project area using village maps, as opposed
to using ocial maps that did not properly
re¯ect traditional land ownership. The local
communities also expressed a preference to
leaseÐrather than sellÐtheir land, which Scott
was willing to discuss. Part of the ®nancing of
the local level negotiations and capacity building e€orts was provided for by USAID and the
Asia Foundation.
Meanwhile, at the international level, an
NGO campaign with a di€erent character had
emerged. The project in Irian Jaya was framed
by linking Scott Paper to their responsibility for
environmental damage in the United States and
Canada. Scott Paper in the United States and
its subsidiaries in Europe were vigorously
targeted by a number of NGOs, like the
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and Survival International. NGOs threatened a consumers' boycott of Scott Products if Scott would
not leave pristine rain forest and the areas of
tribal people untouched. These NGOs cooperated in particular with the Skephi led coalition
in Indonesia. Some Jakarta-based NGOs and
some international groups, such as the Indonesian Environmental Forum (WALHI) and
the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), tried
to follow a road in between. They communicated in a less aggressive way with the Scott
Paper company and stated their willingness to
accept the project, as long as a number of
demands were met.

While NGOs at the international level
communicated intensively with each other,
there was not much communication between
the local and international levels of the NGO
campaign. International groups suspected that
local people were in fact not well informed and
were already worn out by years of Indonesian
oppression and intimidation in this remote
region of Irian Jaya. This perception was
strengthened by the decision of the Indonesian
authorities to virtually close o€ the area to
outsiders.
The situation reached a climax in the second
half of 1989. The Scott Paper project was one
of the cases highlighted by RAN in a full-page
advertisement in the New York Times, pointing
at the destruction of tropical rain forest. On
October 13, Scott announced its withdrawal
from the project, apparently quite to the
surprise of PT Astra and the Indonesian
authorities, who had already boosted the
overall data of foreign investment in Indonesia
in 1989 by including the project in Irian Jaya.
The reason for the withdrawal given by Scott
was that ``extensive studies now indicate the
Company can meet its anticipated needs for
pulp from other sources.'' In interviews,
however, Scott agreed that NGO pressure
played an important role in the considerations
of the company to withdraw.
The di€erences between NGOs operating at
di€erent levels in appreciating the outcome of
the campaign, were best summed up in a letter
from a local NGO to Survival International
after Scott's withdrawal. The local NGO
agreed that it would be best if the project would
be stopped altogether. But PT Astra and the
Indonesian authorities had already announced
that negotiations with various new potential
foreign counterparts for the project were on the
way. The question from East Irian Jaya was
what would the international NGOs do if a new
company from Japan, Taiwan or Korea entered
the local arena, most likely much less willing to
negotiate with the local communities or
NGOs as compared to Scott Paper? To date
there has been no new investment of this
kind.
(d) The competitive campaign
Our fourth typology provides the worst case
scenario, the ``competitive campaign.'' In this
situation, advocacy on one level may actually
have an adverse or counterproductive impact at
another level. There is a serious lack of infor-

POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY AND NGO ADVOCACY

mation exchange and coordination among the
NGOs involved, resulting in an absence of
accountability and a failure to embrace political responsibilities. The dynamics of the
competitive campaign are:
Ða parallel representation of opposing
objectives by di€erent NGOs in di€erent
political arenas;
Ðno direct ¯ow of information among
di€erent NGOs at di€erent levels;
Ðno joint review of strategies or management of political responsibilities which may
result in human rights violations or other
negative impacts on the interests of local
communities;
Ðno political responsibility.
As an example of a competitive campaign we
take the case of the Huaorani ®ghting against
US oil interests in Ecuador (Kane, 1995). Since
1967 American oil companies have exploited oil
resources in Ecuador with impunity. Leaking
pipelines, oil-®res, violence and intimidation
have all been part of the operational realities in
search for the black gold. Rainforests and
thriving tribal communities have been destroyed by the practices of Texaco and
Petroecuador. In the battle to keep Texaco or
any other oil interests out of the Huaorani
territory, some international activists fought to
save the rainforests while the battle on the local
and national level concentrated on protecting
the lives and rights of the indigenous peoples.
While these two interests did not necessarily
compete at all stages of the campaign, at various points in the campaign the di€ering interests did result in competition. The international
campaign against Conoco ran from the late
1980s to the mid-1990s.
In the case against Conoco drilling in
Huaorani territory, many US and Europeanbased environmental and human rights groups
had taken up the issue and staked out political
positions which ran the gamut from opposition
to Conoco to support for the company as the
best option in a bad situation. For the most
part, these positions were taken without
consultation with the Huaorani (who were deep
in the forest) and at best using information
provided by a variety of national level actors in
Ecuador, but sometimes with no in-country
contacts at all. According to one source, the
only thing the European and US groups had in
common was that the Huaorani people did not
recognize any of them.
There was very little information ¯owing
between the di€erent actors in the campaign.

2061

Strategies were adopted based upon what was
considered to be politically feasible, as
opposed to what was requested by the a€ected
communities. Deals were agreed which
undercut the rights of indigenous peoples to
manage their own territories. In some cases,
environmental and human rights organizations raised money in the name of the
campaign but did not share those resources in
any way with the people on whose behalf they
had raised the funds. In fact, activists close to
the indigenous people operated on shoestring
budgets while those operating in the United
States or Europe had plenty of money. At one
point, a US-based environmental organization
attempted to cut a deal with Conoco which
would have allowed the company to build a
road straight through the Huaorani territory.
While decisions taken in the international
political arena did not immediately jeopardize
the safety of the people on the ground in
Ecuador, those decisions in e€ect cut o€ the
negotiating abilities of the indigenous
communities and destroyed a ¯edgling alliance
between the local arena (indigenous peoples)
and the national arena (Ecuadorian environmentalists). The struggle of the Huaorani
continues. The campaign against Conoco in
Ecuador provides an example of the worst
kind of campaign when measuring political
responsibility.
4. MANAGING RELATIONSHIPS IN
TRANSNATIONAL NGO ADVOCACY
The central argument of this article is that
the relationships that emerge among NGOs
engaged in global campaigns are highly
problematic. If not handled with care, they
may re¯ect as much inequality as they are
trying to undo. The inability of national and
international bureaucracies and powerful
sections of the private sector to include and
respect a variety of development aspirations is
perhaps the main driving force behind NGO
advocacy across borders. But it is dicult to
deal with multiple desires for change that can
only be realized by engaging many organizations in complex relationships. This is true at
a practical level as well as for theory
construction.
Many observers like to reduce the fundamental plurality which is expressed in NGO
advocacy to a format which is easier to grasp
and allows for picking up on what is seen as

2062

WORLD DEVELOPMENT

hopeful signs of a vaguely homogeneous
``globalization from below'' (Falk, 1995). But,
if it is at all possible to still distinguish an
``above'' and a ``below'' in globalizing political
realities, changes concerning speci®c issues
need to b